Re: Ironic Use of Attitudinals

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

> It's ironical that you would fight irony with... irony. If you mock someone
>by taking their words at face value when you know that they meant
>something else, then you're using a form of irony yourself. You're
>feigning misunderstanding.  Is that kind of irony approved of?
>(If the misunderstanding is real, what is the source of the delight in
>taking the incorrect usage literally?)

Well sometimes the misunderstanding is real.  Because of my rather poor skills
in the language, I neither can follow irony nor many kinds of Lojbanic
grammatical errors in spoken form.  This is my limitation perhaps, but
my repsonse to it has been to come up with the easiest fix, and then to
take the result literally.  Quite often, the result is quite hilarious.

Since I have never run into a Lojabn speaker except perhaps Nick who was good
enough at the language to speak it fluently and accurately and also be skilled
enough to try irony, I would be more prone to assume an "ironic" attitudinal
to be either an error or malglico, and both tickle my funny bone.  ( I try to
be kind to a beginner who uses an attitudinal that is opposite of what he
really wants, but most anyone with real skill in the language, my reaction
would be zo'o you said quite the opposite of what you really intended.  You
must feel happy that you flunked the test!  I'' betthe teachers love you. Not!

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
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